What I'm Essentially Listening To

Every once in a while someone asks me what the really essential old-time music CDs are. I’m always kind of reluctant to answer, because I haven’t heard all of them, so am certainly leaving some good ones out of any list I might come up with. Besides, any list I might come up with is only my opinion and that’s no better than anyone else’s opinion. Guaranteed.

But, having been pressed to do so again, here’s my latest list of maybe not essential old-time CDs, but ones that I’m listening to a lot lately:

Echoes of the Ozarks, Volumes 1 & 2 from County Records. These really are essential, especially if you’re looking for Missouri and Arkansas tunes.

Lost Indian: Fiddling on the Frontier by Chris Wig and Whitt Mead on the Yodel-Ay-Hee label. Lots of good tunes that I should sit down and learn one of these days.

Fuzzy Mountain String Band on Rounder. This is the gold standard. I never get tired of it.

Bound To Have A Little Fun by the Orpheus Supertones. I think the Mound City Slickers (who I play with) have incorporated almost every tune on this CD into our repertoire. It’s another of those I can listen to any time.

Anything by Tommy Jarrell.

The Humdingers (featuring Brad Leftwich and Linda Higginbotham) on the Chubby Dragon label. This was recorded some years ago and only recently released. Great tunes with high energy and some of the best banjo uke playing you’ll ever hear.

Okay. Go and listen.

Boy Howdy! What A Fine Time

Last night was the regular session at my friend and fellow Mound City Slicker Bob’s house. It reminded me just how great this old-time music stuff can be.

It was a smallish session; only the five Slickers could make it. So… two fiddles, guitar, banjo, and myself on banjo uke. Still, we produced a big sound with that old-time pulse that drives the dancers. Probably half of the tunes we played were ones we’d not played as a group before. Lots of them I’d heard but had never played. But what fun! Tearing through “Mississippi Mud”, “Old Time Sally Ann”, “Sail Away Ladies”, and a dozen others. Picking up a note here and a chord there and just about having the tune figured out by the time it was through.

Between the tunes we all talked about other tunes and songs these reminded us about, times we had years ago, and planning to go to festivals together in the future. A couple of bottles of beer were somewhere in the mix along with the laughs and the talk.

In the kitchen, Bob’s wife, Andrea was making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes they’d grown in their backyard garden, so as we played, we were surrounded by wonderful aromas of tomato, basil, garlic and who knows what else that went into the pot!

Boy howdy! What a fine time.

Gateway Dulcimer Festival 2007 Post Mortem

Boy, I have a good life! What a great (if exhausting!) weekend at the Gateway Dulcimer Festival in Belleville, Illinois.

Thursday night was when all of the early registrants showed up along with the folks presenting workshops and performing at the Friday and Saturday night concerts. There was a pretty good jam session going on and I got to say “Hey!” to many friends that I only see at these festivals; Jack and Mary Giger, Mike Anderson, Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly, Rick Thumb and lots of other folks. Traveling to the festival must have worn everyone out, though, as the jamming was done by about 10:30.

One of the high points of the evening was getting to meet Shari Wolf, the guitarist for Sweetwater. She’s a real hoot and her guitar playing really helped keep the rhythm going in the big jam! I hope I run into her again soon.

Friday, Dan and I got to the festival around 11:00 in the morning. More “Hi, howyadoin’ ” followed and we shortly sat down to play tunes. We jammed with an ever changing group of people all afternoon, only stopping for dinner and the evening concert.

The concert was top notch. It was great hearing performances by Jack and Mary, autoharpist Alex Usher, the lovely and charming Princess Harris (I think she’s my favorite hammered dulcimer player), beautiful songs by Katie Waldren and Candace Kreitlow, and Atwater/Donnelly to close the show. Probably the highlight of the concert was an eight or nine minute unaccompanied clog dance and story performance piece that Aubrey Atwater did seamlessly slipping between different clogging styles from different parts of the U.S. and Canada and who taught her each. She finished it up by clogging singing a French Canadian song while frailing the banjo all at the same time. The whole thing was sort of like the folk music equivalent of a drum solo. Sort of like the Grateful Dead’s Rhythm Devils in one pair of feet!

After the concert it was back to fiddling for me at another big jam session. Played a ton of tunes until around 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. Friend Neil showed up with his button boxes and added a whole different feeling to the tunes. A fiddle, an accordion, a mandolin, a couple of banjos, a harmonica, a couple of guitars, three or four hammered dulcimers, and maybe twenty mountain dulcimers. What a racket! Beautiful!

Saturday I had the great pleasure of playing guitar to back my good friend, terrific fiddler, and the director of the Folk School of St. Louis, Colleen Heine for the evening concert. Our set was great fun and seemed to go over pretty well. We played about a half hour of old-time fiddle tunes and songs. I hope we get to do more of it.

Others on the bill that evening were Barb Ernst, the aforementioned Sweetwater (who did a great set of funny songs with beautiful vocal from all three of the members), Mike Anderson, and Rick Thum.

After the concert it was back to jamming with the big bunch of dulcimers again. This time it broke up (pr at least I pooped out) around 1:00. By then my fingers had had about enough punishment and I was starting to forget which tunes I was playing. Sure signs that I’d been having far more than my share of fun over the last couple of days.

So, today (Monday), I’m still running on fumes, my hands are less sore, but there’s a smile on my face. Can’t wait ‘til next year!

Dulcimer Playing Weekend!

This weekend, I'm spending a lot of time over in Belleville, IL at the Gateway Dulcimer Society's festival. It'll be a weekend of catching up with freinds from all over the country who I only see at this festival, meeting new friends, and playing a [i]lot[/i] of tunes.

I'll let you in on all the details when it's over and I've caught my breath.

What is "Jeopardy", Alex?

Amy and I spent the last couple of days up in Chicago where she was going through the second round in her journey to appear on the Jeopardy TV quiz show. Even though I had to spend most of those days plugged in to the laptop and cell phone (^&*&*%@%$^^*@ day job!), we had a real nice time.

The hotel we stayed in, The Tremont, was an old building in the middle of the Gold Coast neighborhood down town. The room was nothing special, but comfortable. The lobby was small, but beautiful and the hotel staff was friendly and helpful. We got a good rate, too by using Expedia for booking the room.

I wish I'd taken pictures, but as usual, I was kind of a pin head and forgot to pack the camera.

Amy had a blast at the audtions/testing/whatever you want to call it. And she thinks she did pretty well. Took a written test, played a mock game with podiums and clickers to ring in... the whole shooting match. She said it was so much fun, she was sorry when it was over. So, now she's on a waiting list of possible contestants and could be called out to play the game in LA for real at any time.

After she got done with her day of auditions and I got done with my day of meetings and other work, we took a good, long walk down by Lake Michigan. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze from the lake, so it was pleasant. We walked down to Navy Pier and all around it. Neither of us had ever been to the pier before, and I can't see us going back again. It's sort of like a big mall with tons of stuff for tourists to buy, but not much else worth noting.

Still, the lake is beautiful and the walk along it was worth the trip. It was a shame we didn't bring our swim suits, as the water looked so inviting.

Then we hopped on a free trolley back from Navy Pier towards our hotel. Stopped by Pizzaria Uno for dinner. I'm not normally much for pizza, but Amy loves it, so.... Anyway, I can heartily recommend this place. The pizza is about an inch and a half thick with a good crust, plenty of cheese and a tasty tomato sauce. The atmosphere is good, too. Kind of grungy and crowded. A real city place.

Anyway, that's what we did with ourselves the last few days. How about you?

Too much stuff in too small a bag

Wow. Once again, my life seems to have exploded. Way too much to do and not enough waking hours in the day to do it. As a result, my time playing fiddle and dulcimer has gotten slimmer and slimmer and my time thinking of things to post here has gotten non-existent. I mean, I like to be busy... but geez... there’s a limit, y’know.

I think there’s light at the end of the tunnel, though.

Of course, the day job is still pretty hectic and that doesn’t look like letting up any time soon. Not ‘til sometime in 2012 anyway…

But next week looks pretty commitment free outside of work. And I’m determined to start taking a yoga class during that lull. Then the first few days of August will be taken up with a trip to Chicago with Amy for her to audition for Jeopardy, which should be fun. So, maybe that’ll all help me to de-stress and find more time and energy for making music and learning new tunes.

And as I'm reading this, I'm thinking, "That last paragraph sounds pretty action-packed for a guy who's trying to shed commitments and simplify his time." And I've got to shake my head and laugh.

More later...

I. D. Stamper: Ozarks Dulcimer

If you haven't come across it already, let me point you towards the Digital Library of Appalachia. It's a terrific resource providing online access to the archives of about a dozen special collections of Appalachian College libraries relating to southern and central Appalachian culture. Of special interest to me are the collection of mp3 files of I.D. Stamper playing and talking.

Stamper was a dulcimer player who was born in the Ozarks of Arkansas in 1904 and moved with his family to eastern Kentucky when he was young. His dulcimer playing is just terrific with a drive and energy that one hears in the Appalachian styles, but tempered by the (to my ear) less rhytmic and more melodic playing of the Ozarks. I love his playing and can't get enough of it. I hope you enjoy it, too. As well as the rest of the gold mine of music and information in these archives!

What Is It With These Cheap Skates, Anyway?

This past Friday night, Dan (we perform together as The Hot Baloney Boys) and I spent a few hours playing busking on the corners of St. Louis' Central West End district. It's a very hip area of town with a lot of galleries, bars, restaurants, and clubs. The weather Friday was beautiful and there was a lot of foot traffic on the streets. Even so, we made very little money. People seemed to enjoy the music, and we had one woman who spent a considerable amount of time taking photos of us and telling us how great we were. Then she left us a dollar.

Now, I'm not in this for the money. Dan and I get out and busk as often as we can, mostly because it gives us a chance to play together and gets us out into the fresh air. Usually we make enough to buy a couple of beers when we're done, and that's just fine. But for gosh sake, show a little love, people! What I noticed on Friday was that people who sat at nearby sidewalk cafe tables and were obviously enjoying the music; tapping their feet, talking and nodding or pointing to us, waving at us would then get up from their table and walk past us even averting their eyes in an attempt to pretend that we were no longer there, not even throwing a single into the fiddle case at our feet.

We had one guy stop and talk for a while to let us know that he thought it was great that we were playing on the street, that it really adds something to the life of the neighborhood. Said he couldn't figure out why there wasn't more of this going on in an area with such great night life. Shook my hand and then walked away without tipping at all.

Don't these folks make the connection that maybe there aren't more musicians on their streets because they don't tip the ones that are already there??? Come on, people! Give a little more and you'll get a lot. It's a basic rule of things. Art and music aren't free, no matter how much you'd like for them to be. Musicians are not all hippy-dippy artists with no need for cash. They're working folks just like you with families to support and mortgages and rent to cover every month. They spend hours and hours learning new tunes and practicing to constantly get better on their instruments. But, if the local residents and folks spending time in the arts and cafe districts don't make it worthwhile for local musicians to get out and busk and contribute their talent to making St. Louis a vital, hip, living city, they're not going to do it. You're at least half of the equation.

A Dream Returned

During a lesson I was teaching a few months ago, I noticed that the tuner for the high string on my main dulcimer was slipping. By the end of the lesson, it was completely gone and wouldn't stay in tune at all.

Modern Mountain Dulcimer Dream Model
Walnut w/Spruce bottom and Ebony fretboard

I was bummed.

This was my main player. Sure, I've got other lap dulcimers. And I like them fine, to varying degrees. But this is the one I love playing the best. It's got a beautiful, tight, woody sound; the action is perfect for me; it just feels good under my hands. It's a Dream model made by David McKinney of Modern Mountain Dulcimers like the one pictured above. According to David, he had a dream about making dulcimers upside down, with the holes in the bottom and he just did it. He made this one a few years ago and it's just gotten better and better over time. I love it and am so glad that this one found its way to me. (Another story entirely, but a good one.)

After the lesson, I got home, put the instrument away and then got busy. So busy that for the last couple of months, I haven't had time (or made time) to get the dulcimer to Andy Gribble to get it repaired. I think about it every time I pick up a dulcimer to play or teach a lesson, but life and work and meetings all have gotten in the way.

Well, finally, last week, I made the time. Took it over to Andy and explained the problem. We looked in catalogs for replacement tuners, talked about what needed to be done and agreed it would take a couple of weeks for him to get the repairs done.

Andy called me night before last to let me know he'd gotten it done. It turned out that there was a set screw on the end of the tuner that had gotten loose and just needed to be tightened up. Had it been a banjo, that's the first thing I would have done: tightened that screw. Somehow, because it was a dulcimer, I didn't even think of it. Dopey me.

I picked that big ole, upside down dulcimer up from Andy last night, sat it on my lap and played it for a long time. I'm sure I had a big grin on my face. It sounded so good! At first I thought it was new strings, but no, it wasn't. Just the feel and sound of getting reacquainted with an old friend. It reminded me how much I really do like that instrument.

I guess it is true what they say about abscence making the heart grow fonder.

Another Old-Time Weekend

It was another one of those transcendent weekends of old-time music. The Folk School of St. Louis brought Dan Gellert to St. Louis for a couple of day-long workshops on playing banjo and fiddle. Dan’s one of the modern masters of old-time music (kind of an oxymoron there, eh?) and a one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet, as well. His banjo and fiddle playing is pretty unique these days, incorporating Round Peak styles of playing and a very heavy influence from African-American players like Dink Roberts. It’s glorious, rhythmic, danceable stuff that you just don’t hear very often. Along with the workshops there was a house concert with Dan at my friend Andy’s loft down on Washington Street on Saturday evening and then Dan, Andy and Dave played for the Childgrove dance.

I didn’t have a chance to sit in on the banjo workshop on Saturday afternoon, but everyone I talked to who did was glowing about it. To a person, they said Dan’s teaching changed and improved the way they think about playing the banjo and felt it would make them better players. You can’t get better than that.

The house concert was wonderful in every sense. I need to thank both Andy and Colleen for all they did to make this happen. There were around fifty people there in Andy’s big loft apartment to hear Dan play. Many new who he was and many had only the vaguest idea, but had heard that he was good. The sense of community among the people and the good will floating around the room was beautiful. You couldn’t be there and not feel welcomed and part of something very fine. Even beyond the music, that’s the thing that I love most about the Folk School and what it does: this bringing together of people of different backgrounds and ages and providing new, positive experiences for a community of people.

For about forty-five minutes, people arrived; milled around; greeted old friends and met new ones; found places to sit; settled in with beer, wine, pop, water. Then Dave Landreth introduced Dan Gellert to the crown and the concert began.

Listening to Dan play in such a close setting with such rapt attention was really magical. There’s something about his playing and his commitment to his sources that transported the whole bunch of us to another place. The music could have been old 78’s played on an ancient machine, a rent party in the 30’s, or a hot summer evening on an Appalachian front porch. Everyone in the loft was held rapt by the sound of the fretless banjo and tapping of this man’s foot. And everyone had a big smile or a look of amazement on their face as they sat happily entranced.

After about an hour, there was a break for everyone to socialize some more and share their thoughts about what they’d just heard, which more often than not, amounted to “Wow!” For me, even though I couldn’t have enjoyed it more, I was left thinking (as I often do, if I’m honest with myself), “every time I think I’m getting to be a half-way good fiddler, I hear someone like Dan Gellert and realize how much further I have to go.”

Then another set of banjo and fiddle tunes. A few songs thrown into the mix.

When it was all over, most of the people left happy. After so much laughing and talking and hugs and handshakes, how could you not? A few of us stayed and broke out our instruments to play, talk and drink some more before heading out into the hot St. Louis summer night.

Gosh, I’m lucky to live in a time and place where this kind of thing can go on and I can be a part of it.

No Music Related Content At All... Just Books Today

Here's hoping everyone had a big time on Independence Day. For me, it was a good chance to sit with a good book in the morning, spend some time at a barbecue with friends in the afternoon, and listen to my neighborhood sounding like Beirut in the evening.

I had high hopes for getting out in the yard and doing some much needed clearing of weeds and vines by the fence, but it just didn't happen. I'd started reading Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert the evening of the 3rd, and went right back to it over breakfast in the morning. As a result, nothing got done in the yard, and I expect to see tigers prowling that jungle any day now.

Ms. Gilbert had also written The Last American Man, which I read a couple of years ago and really enjoyed. I'm liking this latest book even more. It has food writing, a search for spiritual awakening, and some pretty funny (ha-ha, not funny peculiar) and maybe pretty insightful thoughts on love and relationships. All good stuff for a summer read.

Speaking of books, I don't read a lot of fiction, but I finished a novel a few days ago that I want to recommend. It's Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Just a terrific book that I raced through in only a couple of days. Again, highly recommended.

That's it for now. Next time, I promise more on old-time music.

Another Old-Time Stringband for Peace

I've been playing with Dan and Colleen as The Hot Baloney Boys for a while now. We've got a regular Sunday morning thing at the Hartford Coffee Company. A few weeks ago, we sat in the coffee shop window and took the picture below for the American Friends' Friends for Peace campaign.



This is an online campaign to show the faces of the pro-peace majority in the U.S. who are committed to ending the war in Iraq, and we were proud to take part in it.

Click these links to go to the find more information on the Friends For Peace campaign, and more info on the American Friends Service Committee. They're a good organization and well worth supporting in times of war or peace.

Get active. Stay aware.

Pictures from Sunday's Dance

Here are some pictures from the dance we played Sunday night. Thanks to Paul Stamler for taking the pictures while we were busy playing and thanks to Bill Stewart for putting them on a CD and giving a copy to me.

Hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed playing there!

The band (with caller's foot)

The first contra of the evening

Dancing to "My Own House Waltz"

The view from the bandstand

A closer look at the Mound City Slickers:

Roy

David

Bill

Bob

Sean (your humble author)

This all looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it?

Big Fun at the Dance

The contra dance band that I play with, The Mound City Slickers, played for the Childgrove Country Dancers last night. I can’t tell you how much fun it was. This was the first dance we’ve played for with our current lineup of two fiddles, banjo, guitar, and ukulele, and with all due modesty, I want to say we were hot. I think we impressed the callers, too, since we took requests and didn’t have any trouble changing up the set list to accommodate the dances that the callers wanted to call.

It was interesting (and fun) that there was a different caller for each dance last night; something that I’ve not run into before. Each caller had a different level of experience and a different style. But we got through them all without a train wreck and had a blast doing it. I think mixing up the callers kept us interested as well as the dancers because of all the differences.

Other excitement for the evening was that there was a casting crew at the dance for some reality show called The Farmer’s Wife or something like that. Apparently, they’re going to film this TV program in or around St. Louis (a hotbed of farming and rural life…. Yeah. Right.) where ten women from L.A. try to get a farm boy to pick them to marry and win a lot of money. One of the “tasks” that they’ll have the women do to prove they’re worthy is go to a square dance. Likely, the point will be to show how goofy and humorous folks who square dance are. Anyway, we had a group of heavily tattooed, very hip young women from Hollywood running around with cameras filming the dance and getting people to sign up to possibly be dancers when they film the actual dance for the show. Which I understand they’re going to film under the Gateway Arch. Yes, it makes no sense to me either. But we all had a good time watching them film the band and the dancers and the five of us agreed that if they asked us to play for the dance on TV and gave us a lot of money, we’d be more than happy to do it.

Of course, as always, the big fun of the evening was getting to play tunes and watch the dancers having so much fun moving around the floor. It’s what the music is all about. It just doesn’t get any better than playing good music with friends for a bunch of appreciative dancers. I don’t know how long I’ll keep smiling about last night. Probably a long time.

Battle Ground

Well, I'm back from the Battle Ground festival and I'm soggy, but not much worse for wear. Even though there was a lot of rain and my brother and I drove back Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday morning as we'd intended to do, we had a real good time while we were there. Saturday was beautiful. Mild temperatures and sun without a lot of humidity. No problems putting up our tents, and the new pop-up canopy I'd bought since getting back from Mt. Airy worked like a dream, giving us shade and a good place to sit, play tunes, and drink a few beers.

Picture actually taken in 2005.

I forgot to take any this year!

The evening concert was good, though too long. Afterwards, we wandered the campground, greeted old friends and new friends, and eventually found our way back to our tents and played tunes until about 2:30 in the morning. Several folks from St. Louis joined us as well as a couple of friends I'd never met before. The big surprise was seeing Bruce, who'd camped next to me at Lanesboro the last two years walk up with his fiddle. He said he hadn't been to Battle Ground for seven years! But he was walking past our campsite and heard good music and decided to sit in for a bit. We neither of us knew the other would be here! When we recognized each other it was hugs and how-ya-doin's all around. Then a few more tunes.

Again, 2005

Unfortunately, the rain came about 4:00 AM and kept it up all morning. I managed to get in another couple of hours of playing under the canopy before it, too, got waterlogged and started leaking at the seams. Then word came that there would be thunderstorms rolling in later that afternoon. So, Kevin and I packed up and headed for home. There'll always be next year!

Not A Bad Afternoon At All

As some of you probably know, I teach mountain dulcimer lessons at The Folk School of St. Louis. Sometimes teaching can be just awful. Students don’t show up; you don’t get paid on time; students don’t practice or their minds are elsewhere during the lesson and sitting there listening to them fumble through a tune is just painful.

Then there are days like yesterday, when I had three students who were so much fun I didn’t want the lessons to end.

My first student of the day came back to lessons after about a month off full of energy and wanting to learn. It was great. Then my second student of the day was even better. She’s been struggling since she started coming in a few months ago. But something seems to have happened recently and she’s now really “getting it”. She’s picking up the tunes faster and seems to have a much more responsive attitude to learning how to play.

Last student of the day was a new one. And what fun! She really seemed happy to be there and we both laughed a lot and had a real good time. I think she’s going to be a good one.

After my regular lessons, I got some time before packing up to sit with a student who’s taking one of the school’s ensemble classes and go over a tune (“Possum On A Rail”) she’s learning on the fiddle with her. Jill’s fairly new to fiddling and was feeling a little unsure of her playing on the tune. I was able to sit and play it for her a couple of times so she could hear that she is remembering/playing it correctly and that it’s not really a hard tune at all. She beamed when she realized that she can play it for the class.

Quite a day. Three good teaching experiences in one afternoon. It makes the more difficult ones all worth doing.

"Marmaduke's Hornpipe" and Me

Imagine my surprise! I was sitting around at the Folk School of St. Louis one day earlier this week, waiting for one of my dulcimer students to show up and happened to pick up an old copy of The Devil’s Box to read. The Devil’s Box was a now defunct magazine about fiddling and fiddlers that ran for a few years. There was an article in this particular issue written by Dr. Howard Marshall (whose Fiddling Missouri CD on the Voyager label is well worth having, by the way) on the tune "Marmaduke’s Hornpipe". Now, this is a tune I really enjoy playing, so the article was a much welcome time-killer.

Right at the beginning, Dr. Marshall remarks that the tune is probably named for John Sappington Marmaduke, whose maternal grandfather was Dr. John Sappington, a pioneer in the use of quinine as a treatment for malaria and resident of the Little Dixie area of Missouri. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I literally had to gasp when I read that.

You see, my great grandfather on my mother’s side was Eugene Sappington, son of John Sappington of Sappington, Missouri just outside of St. Louis where I live. Our John Sappington was a close relative of the Little Dixie John Sappington. Or so the family lore goes. Possibly a son, though our family history is vague on this point. Eugene was the original owner of one of the fiddles I play today. Or maybe it was his father, John. Again, it's kind of vague.

Over the years, I’ve heard many stories at family gatherings about our old John Sappington and his accomplishments. My grandmother often talked about him. I’ve toured the Sappington house in what is now Crestwood, MO knowing that this was his house and having my grandmother tell me of playing in it when she was a child; heard stories (true or not, I don't know) about how the house was a stop on the underground railway during the Civil War; heard stories about how his son, my great grandfather, had a barbershop in the Crestwood/Afton area and how he and my great grandmother Rose got married. I’ve always had a spot of pride for that branch of the family. But now that I know I’m related through old John to the fellow for whom “Marmaduke’s” is named, I could about burst with pride.

And that I play that tune on that fiddle! I wonder; did old John ever listened to his son play that hornpipe on that fiddle? I wonder if J. S. Marmaduke ever sat with his kinfolk over a cup of coffee at the Sappington house and listened, as well.

And had my student not been caught in traffic on that Tuesday afternoon, I might never have known about this. Wow! Life is indeed stranger than fiction.

I suppose that there is some genealogical work in my future to run down the facts of my kinship to Marmaduke and his hornpipe.

Tattoo!

Because you demanded it. Well, one of you anyway. A photo of the tattoo I got last Thanksgiving.



I had wanted to get one for years, but could never decide what I'd want permanently affixed to my body that I wouldn't change my mind about later. Then I saw the cover of R. P. Christeson's The Old-Time Fiddlers Repertory and I knew this was it.

Wednesday Night Session

Yesterday was a mess. The day job was hectic and stressful... headaches in other areas of life hitting me all at once... hadn't had time in the morning to meditate... had a development committee meeting for the Folk School in the early evening... yearghh!

Then I went over to Bob's house (that's Bob in the picture below) for the Wednesday night old-time music session he hosts.

(Bob at Bluff Country Gathering '07)

Sat down. Tuned up the banjo uke. The first tune we played was "Sheep Shell Corn By the Rattlin' of His Horn". With the first couple of notes, all of the stress and bother of the day slid off me like water off a duck. By the time a few others showed up with fiddles, upright bass, banjos, and guitars I had a smile on my face that wouldn't leave until the tunes were over and it was time to drive home.

There is just nothing in this world like old-time music played with enthusiasm and friendship to put the day's cares in perspective.

Pictures from Mt. Airy

So, my friend Renee mentioned to me her disapointment at my not posting anything yesterday. Busy day at work... too much to do... blah, blah, blah... It's forced me to return to the Mount Airy well and post some photos of people playing tunes. Hope you all enjoy them. If I get time in the next couple of days, I'll post some of the pictures I took a few weeks ago at The Bluff Country Gathering. 'Cause, of course, you can't ever have too many photographs of people playing fiddles and banjos.

Above is a picture of Woody McKenzie playing fiddle and Jack (didn't get his last name) with a banjo on his lap. Woody is one of the nicest fellows I've yet met and a heck of a fine fiddler. Jack is a lot of fun as well and loves to sing those old-time songs.

Later in the afternoon, Woody took the time to teach "Spotted Pony" to a young girl who is just starting out on fiddling. His patience, skill at explaining, and enjoyment at seeing her picking it up were a great thing to watch.